


I Never Get Sick

by kam



Series: Cotton Candy [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kam/pseuds/kam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short Johnlock (sort of) written for the BBC Kink Meme Prompt:<br/>Sherlock refuses to accept when he gets ill. I'd love to see him ignoring it to the stage where he's literally falling asleep on his feet and feeling so crap and out of it that he's basically non-responsive. And still trying to convince John that he's fine and is perfectly capable of going to that new crime scene thank-you-very-much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Never Get Sick

This is, technically, all my fault. Technically. Because yes, I _did_ bring the cold home from the clinic. And yes, I _did_ make Sherlock bring me tea and tissues, exposing him to the cold. In my defense, I didn’t realize how bloody _stupid_ he was going to be about the whole thing (which, admittedly, was rather dense on my part.) And I did _try_ to make him slow down. I told him to stay home and have some soup and a hot bath, give his body a chance to fight back. He just _wouldn’t_.

 

“I am _not_ sick, John, nor am I willing to waste precious time on your irrational fears.”

“It’s not _irrational_ , Sherlock! You’ve caught the cold I had last week, honestly, you’re making this a much bigger deal than it ought to be. Just take a day off!”

“Absolutely not. The thief isn’t going to ‘take a day off’, why should I?”

“Because you’re ill, you bloody berk!”

 

It did nothing. He wouldn’t listen, despite me being, you know, a bloody _doctor_. I shouldn’t have been surprised. But, as basically everybody in the entire damn world knows – ‘everybody’ of course meaning ‘everybody except Sherlock bloody Holmes’ – if you ignore a cold and keep running yourself ragged, which is basically Sherlock’s default state, it will not go away. It will get worse. And then suddenly you will have pneumonia. And it will be your own damn fault.

 

“Sherlock, mate, you don’t look good. Go home.”

“Absolutely not. Honestly, John, did you _really_ think that if _you_ couldn’t convince me, Lestrade could?”

“I didn’t tell him, you paranoid sod. You’re sick, and you look it.”

“Preposterous. I _never_ get sick.”

“You threw up this morning.”

“Immaterial.”

 

Sherlock continued going to crime scenes. When Lestrade stopped calling him, he started showing up uninvited. When Lestrade banned him, he began stealing files. He stayed out til all hours, following leads, chasing criminals, and I _had_ to go with him, of course, because being an idiot is dangerous, but it’s even more dangerous when you’ve probably got pneumonia. But he wouldn’t listen to me. The coughing, he insisted, was a symptom of higher-than-average smog production. The vomiting, he maintained, was caused by me forcing him to eat so often. The runny nose he attributed to the chilly weather. The fatigue was my imagination.

 

“Sherlock, you’re about ten time paler than normal. Let’s go home, this’ll be here tomorrow.”

“No. Surveillance is vital to this case.”

“Yeah, alright, but it’s _cold_. I’ll call Lestrade, he can send some boys down to take our place.”

“Like I would trust the idiots at the Yard to collect this information.”

“Sherlock, you look like death.”

“And what, precisely, does death look…”

 

That’s when he passed out. I had to call Greg to come drive us home and help me get him up the stairs. He woke up once, as we were carrying him from the car, and insisted that we put him down, as the suspect was getting away. Then his eyes closed again and his head fell back against my shoulder. Greg offered to run to Tesco and get some supplies while I put Sherlock to bed, and I wrote out a list of things I’d probably need.

 

“I guess we’ll just have to get by without him for a while.”

“Guess so.”

“Christ, I do hope he’s ok, but the team’s gonna be relieved.”

“Yeah, well, see how relieved they are when they realise they’ve got a serial killer on the loose and Sherlock is out of commission.”

“I know, I know. Get him better quick as you can.”

“Quick as he’ll let me, anyway.”

 

Sherlock spent the next three days half-asleep, which meant, luckily, that he was very compliant. He would cling to my neck when I forced him out of bed and helped him stumble through to the bath, then lie back and close his eyes while I washed him. He would let me prop him up on pillows and swallow obediently when I fed him soup and tea. He took the tablets I gave him twice a day without complaint, though he winced at the taste. When I wasn’t there to make him do anything, he stayed curled up under the extra blankets I’d piled onto his bed, drifting in and out of sleep.

 

“John? John!”

“What, Sherlock?”

“Why can’t I sit up?”

“You’re weak. You’ve been in bed for three days.”

“What?! _Why_?”

“Pneumonia.”

“I did not have pneumonia.”

“No, you didn’t. You _still_ have it.”

 

The next three or four days were not quite as pleasant. Sherlock was awake, but still too weak to do much of anything. He still clung to me on trips to the toilet or bath, still let me wash him and feed him, still took the tablets I gave him, but he complained through all of it. He huddled in his bed, wrapped in a pile of sheets and blankets, and texted for hours. Lestrade called me several times, to double check that Sherlock was, in fact, still too ill to come to a crime scene, and finally agreed to bring the latest case files by the flat, if Sherlock would stop texting him.

 

“You still haven’t caught her?”

“…still? Sherlock, the case has only been open for four days now.”

“ _Four_ days? But it’s so _obvious_! Honestly, is this what you _do_ when I’m not there?”

“When you’ve run yourself into the ground? Yes.”

“If this is too straining, I can make him take his files and leave, Sherlock. Wouldn’t want to exhaust you.”

“Fine. _Fine_. Let me see the next one.”

 

Under the threat of losing all of his experiments, Sherlock stayed in bed for another two days. He grumbled when I brought him tea or food and complained until I brought him his violin. He didn’t actually _play_ the damn thing, just hunched around it and occasionally plucked one of the strings. His temperature finally dipped below 37.5˚ and stayed there, so I let him move out to the sofa, where he wrapped himself in a quilt and kept the telly on without watching it for the rest of the day. I left him there around eleven and went to bed.

 

“John, wake up, we have a case!”

“Sherlock, it’s four in the morning.”

“Indeed. Let’s go.”

“Did Lestrade call you?”

“I informed him you had allowed me out of quarantine.”

“You weren’t in quarantine, you idiot.”

“Confined to my quarters, then. I appreciate your ridiculous attempts at ‘taking care’ of me, John, but you’ve wasted enough time already. Coming?”

“…yeah, alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, ill!Sherlock and ill!me are ALSO the same person.


End file.
